Set in Stone
by Lucinda Cottontale
Summary: As soon as they were proclaimed, the words of the announcer were swallowed up in a roar of cheers by the hundred-plus people, Jesse's team included. Determined even more to win the competition, Jesse resolved to focus on winning and to think no more of the Ocelots and their freacon beacon. }§{ —A Minecraft: Story Mode Novelization— Male Jesse
1. When One Story Ends

**Foreword :**

 **Hello fellow fans and friends! :D Welcome to my Minecraft: Story Mode novelization!**

 **When I first played MCSM, I thought that it was a good story that wasn't that well written but had a lot of potential. I kept thinking to myself as we played, 'I love the characters, but they're underdeveloped. I love the plot, but it's full of holes. I love this story! But there are so many things I would change.' Observations led to analyses, analyses to ideas, ideas to brainstorming sessions, and so on and so forth, until… well, I arrived here. That being said, there was _one_ key moment in the story, (which I will point out when I get to it) that ultimately kicked me down the rabbit hole.**

 **I'm doing my best to write the story in such a way that you don't have to have played the game before, as long as you've played Minecraft or just know how it works. So if you have any friends that play Minecraft but don't want to play/buy MCSM, and you want them to know the story, please direct them here! :)**

 **Note to anyone who hasn't played _either_ game, try to read this like an original novel. I will have a glossary at the end for anything that I found difficult to explain within the story itself.**

 **Enjoy!**

Prologue – When One Story Ends

««««« … »»»»»

Two down, one to go.

Ivor held his new yet dusty trophy close and out of sight as he walked through the halls of the theater.

With the press of a camouflaged button on the wall, the pistons worked behind him to cover his tracks, leaving the entrance to his secret lair completely hidden. It was a brilliant design if he did say so himself, but that wasn't important right now.  
Along with one fewer Wither skull to acquire came one problem. He was running out of stamina—not to mention getting very sick of the taste of his own potions—and if he couldn't get his hands on one more skull before tomorrow night, all of this rigmarole would be for naught.

As luck would have it, he'd heard about a treasure hunter in town who, for a small fee, was about to make the third skull much easier to obtain. Good timing, too. He had already broken fourteen gold swords getting the first two himself, and if he had to brave one more trip to that confounded Nether, he might just die—if not from Wither sickness than from sheer heat exhaustion.

"I'm getting too old for this," he mumbled to himself after carefully placing the newest addition to his plan in a large chest right next to its identical counterpart. "Blasted Wither skeletons…"

Ivor walked over to a cauldron at the edge of the room and peered down at his reflection on the water inside. With the layers upon layers of ash all over his face, he couldn't help but think that he almost looked like one of those ghastly creatures himself. He scrubbed his face clean and did his best to get all of the soot out of his scraggly beard, but couldn't tell how successful he was since his hair was already coal black. He could think of few things he hated more than Wither skeletons.

At the moment, it was blazes. "Blasted blazes!" If it weren't for his potions, they would have burned him to a crisp. Unfortunately potions of fire resistance didn't work on clothing.

He took off his charred, tattered robes and slipped on a new dark green one that looked identical to the other before it had caught fire from the blaze attack. Nasty creature. Well _he'd_ had the last laugh, and now its smoldering remains burning a hole in his Pocket would be ground into powder and used for more potions of fire resistance.

With that, Ivor left the security of his makeshift lair in hopes that this rumored treasure hunter would not disappoint.

« … »

Ivor had never been known for his patience, but time was of the essence, and he couldn't let this opportunity slip through his fingers. So grudgingly, in the shelter of a dark secluded byway, he forced himself to wait.

"'I've been expecting you…'" he muttered to himself in what sounded to him like an intimidating tone. "No, that's too obvious. 'I don't like to be kept waiting.' No, no, that's not right either."

He paused, putting a finger to his chin. "'We meet at last…' Oh, that's _good_."

"Hello?" he heard from his left, and he turned to see a rugged looking girl with a blue bandanna and shoulder length orange hair, silhouetted in sunlight at the entrance to the alley. With one hand to her side and the other slinging a pickaxe over her shoulder, she stepped forward and met him in the shadows.

Ivor frowned.

"You're late," he stated flatly, raising an eyebrow in disapproval. "Petra, was it?"

"That's right. And you are?"

"Introductions can wait," he said smoothly. "First, tell me one thing. Are you willing to go to the Nether?"

"I've been there before, if that's what you're asking."

"Excellent. And have you ever fought a Wither skeleton?"

She cocked her head with mild interest. "So you need a Wither skull."

Hmm. Smarter than she looked. That could be a problem. "Indeed. And for the price…"

He was reluctant to even suggest gold. It was valuable enough, but if she had been to the Nether herself, she might have a surplus as well. Besides, he wanted to keep his gold. It was extremely useful for brewing. However, he didn't suppose she would accept spider eyes.

"How about a gold block?"

"Hmm…" She looked down, making a pensive face before shrugging. "Not useful enough."

He inhaled sharply. Not useful? He couldn't count the number of invisibility, night vision and healing potions he'd brewed using gold pillaged from zombie pigmen.

 _I suppose you think ghast tears and blaze rods aren't useful either!_ He wanted to say. _I suppose you charge into battle at night blind and exposed—because you think it's 'sporting' or something!_

Ivor exhaled and forced a cordial smile.

Petra smiled back and suggested, "How about a diamond?"

And there was the problem. He didn't have a diamond. Didn't have time to get one, either.

"That… sounds reasonable," he said.

A diamond was indeed a small price to pay for such a valuable piece, especially since he wasn't even going to pay it.

"It's a deal, then," Petra agreed.

"Fantastic! I need it by tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow?"

He gave her a challenging grin. "Is that too much for you to handle?"

Petra scoffed a laugh. "Hardly."

"Perfect. I'll be waiting between the two buildings west of the entrance to the convention grounds."

"You mean the dark, creepy alley by the gate?"

Ivor almost rolled his eyes. "Yes," he said sardonically. "The ' _dark_ , _creepy_ alley' by the gate."

"All right. And your name _was…_?"

"Ivor!" he announced, grabbing her hand and shaking it energetically. "A _pleasure_ doing business with you!"

He felt so free! No more trips to that sweltering wasteland! No longer would he have to listen to the insufferable moanings of those festering pigmen.

His ego complained and he let go of Petra's hand, backing away and trying to look intimidating. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have other business to attend to."

"Ditto," she said, sounding vaguely amused as she returned her hand to her hip. Ivor on the other hand tried not to spend too much time trying to remember what that word meant.

She turned around to leave and Ivor called after her, "Oh, and Petra…" She peeked over her shoulder at him. "Don't be late."

Oh, that was _good_.

As the girl left, Ivor's excitement returned, and he grinned in sinister delight.

Soon his plan would come to fruition, and then the world would finally know the truth.

The Order of the Stone might be legends, but _his_ story was far from over.

« … » 

_There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death._

— _Proverbs 14:12_

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **So there you have it, the first piece to my first fanfic ever. ; ~;**

 **I wanted to take this moment to thank you… and warn you. - I am a VERY slow writer, but I'm already committed to this project and I WILL finish if it's the last thing I ever do! Feel free to send me questions about any choices I didn't mention or something I added or anything. I have a lot of reasoning that I couldn't fit into the author's notes, and if you're interested, I would love to share them with you. :) Heck, maybe I'll do an audience Q &A thing at the end of each chapter. What do you think?**

 **UPDATE: Oh! And I forgot to mention when I first posted this that, since Chapter 1 probably **won't be up for a couple weeks at least, I'm offering a short preview of it upon request for anyone who reviews. However, I can't respond to an anonymous review, so keep that in mind if you're interested in getting the preview.** My only rule is that a request for the Chapter 1 preview cannot be all that the review entails. **

**P.S. You remember a few weeks ago how the name tags for Reuben and Lukas were spelled wrong and now they're not? Yeah, you can thank me for that. ;) (Unless there was someone else who inquired about this at the same time as me. If so then I tip my hat to you, fellow name stickler!)**

 ** _\- Fourteen Gold Swords?_ — If you've played Minecraft, you know _exactly_ why I made this such an obscene amount. If not, then all you need to know is that gold swords suck and are good for nothing but enchanting. (Which explains why Ivor likes them.) -_-**

 ** _\- The 'Dark, Creepy Alley by the Gate.'_ — Petra quotes him as saying this later—and I don't know if this is just me—but I can't imagine Ivor, as flowery as his speech usually is, saying that. Fixed!**

 **Glossary :**

 **I would like to assume that most of you MCSM players have also played Minecraft, but I'm sure some of you haven't and I'm also showing this to some of my friends who haven't, but you can completely ignore this section if you've played Minecraft. (Even if you've played MCSM though, I suggest reading some of these since I'm going to be going into the finer details of Minecraft.)**

 **- _The Nether_ — The Minecraft equivalent of Hell, except you can enter and leave as you please and it has nothing to do with the condemnation of your soul. :P The Nether is a dimension that can be accessed by making a portal of obsidian and igniting it with fire. It's a barren wasteland with oceans of lava and fire everywhere. Any standing water will vaporize instantly. It can't support life in the traditional sense, but is nonetheless home to a variety of hostile creatures, including but not limited to the following.**

 **- _Wither Skeletons_ — Tall, charred skeletons that wield stone swords and deal great damage on top of afflicting their opponent with Wither sickness (see below). When killed, Wither skeletons will occasionally drop Wither skulls.**

 **- _Blazes_ — Living up to their name, blazes are constantly blowing smoke and will literally go up in flames whenever they are about to literally fire. Smoldering rods float around their main body which they will use for melee attacks (Ouch!). They make a metallic labored breathing sound and are hurt by water, including rain and snowballs.**

 **- _Zombie Pigmen_ — Exactly what they sound like. Pigmen are a lot smarter than normal zombies (more on them later) but share the same attention range (A very long one). They're hive minds that normally just wander around moaning pensively, and when provoked will let out a screech that any other pigman within earshot will hear, prompting him to come to his fellow pig's aid.**

 **- _Wither Sickness_ — A horrible condition in which the victim withers away. Energy is sapped, and the constitution degrades over time. Symptoms include dizziness, coughing, pain all over the body. It will wear off after time but can prove fatal before doing so. Like all status ailments, it can be cured by drinking milk.  
**


	2. Index

Welcome to my index!

Chapter 1 is after this on the list.  
I figure since I'm going the extra mile to make this a readable novel for practically anyone, why not go the extra block to make it even easier. Here, I will place anything about the story that I can't work into the story itself.

I will update this periodically to add anything that might help.

 **My Headcanon :  
**Of _course_ I've had to extrapolate on things in the story in order to work it into a novel. They aren't giving me a lot to work with.

- _Living Situations_ — I don't know why everyone assumes that they all live at the treehouse. It's way too small for the three of them. Besides, the whole place just screams Jesse. I'm going with, the treehouse is Jesse's home and since Jesse is the leader, all three of them spend most of their time there, but they all have their individual homes. This isn't absolute, but I think Axel is totally a pocket house type (basically a compact, simple house with only the essentials that could be easily moved and is designed to be efficient more than comfortable), and Olivia probably lives somewhere in town (this would make sense, since she cares so much about what other people think, for her to be around people more often than the others). As for Lukas and Petra, Petra just goes wherever the heck she wants, moving around a lot and just taking her belongings with her when she moves (though she probably has a secret stash or two), and Lukas probably lives somewhere in town as well.

- _The Pocket!_ — In order to make sense of the fact that these people can hold a ton of stuff in their pockets, I'm saying that it's actually just an aspect of their world that they all have a Pocket, or 'inventory' for you Minecraft players, that can hold a plethora of different items and tools.

 **Glossary :**

\- The Nether — The Minecraft equivalent of Hell, except you can enter and leave as you please and it has nothing to do with the condemnation of your soul. :P The Nether is a dimension that can be accessed by making a portal of obsidian and igniting it with fire. It's a barren wasteland with oceans of lava and fire everywhere. Any standing water will vaporize instantly. It can't support life in the traditional sense, but is nonetheless home to a variety of hostile creatures.

\- Zombies — Zombies in this world aren't really people who have been turned into zombies, but rather just creatures. Zombies have one of the longest attention ranges as they can sense people from a mile away. Once they home in on a target, they focus on it until the target is eliminated, they are eliminated, the target goes out of range, or they acquire a new target.

\- Chicken Jockeys — Chicken jockeys are little tiny little zombies that will mount chickens and run everywhere rather than stumble around like normal zombies. They are deliberate in battle and seem to actually have a brain unlike the larger ones that attack mindlessly.

\- Zombie-Sized Chickens — Don't exist. :P

\- The Ender Dragon — A black dragon (need I say more?). (Okay, fine.) It is located in the End (more on that later) and breathes purple fire. (What? They really don't tell you much about it. Just Google it. :P)

\- Wither Skeletons — Tall, charred skeletons that wield stone swords and deal great damage on top of afflicting their opponent with Wither sickness (see below). When killed, Wither skeletons will occasionally drop Wither skulls.

\- Blazes — Living up to their name, blazes are constantly blowing smoke and will literally go up in flames whenever they are about to literally fire. Smoldering rods float around their main body which they will use for melee attacks (Ouch!). They make a metallic labored breathing sound and are hurt by water, including rain and snowballs.

\- Zombie Pigmen — Exactly what they sound like. Pigmen are a lot smarter than normal zombies (more on them later) but share the same attention range (A very long one). They're hive minds that normally just wander around moaning pensively, and when provoked will let out a screech that any other pigman within earshot will hear, prompting him to come to his fellow pig's aid.

\- Redstone — Redstone is the electronics of Minecraft. It is very brittle, so it turns to powder when mined, and can be laid out like gunpowder as wiring. Redstone dust can also be used in crafting to make redstone components such as pistons, dispensers, and other more advanced circuitry.

\- Wither Sickness — A horrible condition in which the victim withers away. Energy is sapped, and the constitution degrades over time. Symptoms include dizziness, coughing, pain all over the body. It will wear off after time but can prove fatal before doing so. Like all status ailments, it can be cured by drinking milk.


	3. Getting Wood

**Foreword :  
I was really hoping I wouldn't have to make anyone wait a whole month, but alas, there were other deadlines to meet and other obligations to attend to. It's here now, though. :)**

 **Ugh. I had the hardest time getting that last chapter to work. -_- is so picky with the characters they'll allow and how. Did you know you can use tildes but not if they're spaced in a specific way? It was gonna be so cool! I had special scene breaker designs and everything and FFN ruined it! T^T**

 ***Herm* Anyway. :\**

 **So here's my plan; Set in Stone will cover the events of episodes 1-4. I don't think I need to say this (It seems pretty obvious to me), but I'm going to be making my own touches to it. Honestly, what would be the point of writing it if there wasn't going to be anything new happening, right? Just know that every change I made I did to make the story more interesting or less stupid. I mean, I love this game as much as the next fan, but let's face it… there's a lot of stupid. :] If any of you have any questions, feel free to PM me. You can see this plan on my profile along with some other plans.**

 **Without further ado, I present to you Chapter 1.**

* * *

Chapter 1 – Getting Wood

««««« … »»»»»

" _Nothing built can last forever, and every legend no matter how great, fades with time._

 _With each passing year, more and more details are lost, until all that remains are myths… half truths. To put it simply: lies._

 _And yet, in all the known universe, between here and the Far Lands,_

 _the legend of the Order of the Stone endures, unabridged, as self-evident **fact**._

 _Indeed, it is only a troubled land that has need for heroes, and ours was fortunate to have so long ago, four heroes such as these:_

 _Gabriel the Warrior — before whose sword all combatants would tremble._

 _Ellegaard the Redstone Engineer — whose machines would spark an era of invention._

 _Magnus the Rogue — who would channel his destructive creativity for the benefit of all._

 _And Soren the Architect — Builder of Worlds, and leader of the Order of the Stone._

 _These four friends together, would give so much to gain their rightful place as **four** heroes._

 _Their greatest quest would take them on a dangerous journey to fight a mysterious creature known as the Ender Dragon._

 _In the End, the Order of the Stone emerged victorious and the Dragon was defeated._

 _Their story complete, they slipped away into the pages of legend…"_

Jesse looked over at Olivia as she finished reading off the legend of The Order of the Stone from the latest and greatest poster to adorn the walls of his cozy little treehouse.

"Cool, right?" Jesse asked, heaving the bright orange pumpkin he'd just brought in from his garden up onto a bare armor stand where there would have been a helmet if he could afford one. He had received the stand as a gift for his birthday one year, but until he had something to put on it that wasn't a vegetable or a poster, it had the dubious honor of being his sparring partner.

"Yeah," Olivia answered, fashionably late. "Way better than the one you bought last week." She indicated a poster of a pig hanging behind her.

"Hey, that poster is _awesome_ ," Jesse argued. "That pig looks _just_ like Reuben."

Reuben appeared from behind the armor stand at the sound of his name and scampered over to the poster, imitating the pose and expression of the pig in the picture by standing on his hind legs and pawing at the air with his two front hooves.

"Jesse, every pig in the world looks just like Reuben."

"That's not true," Jesse said with a frown as Reuben marched back over. He gave an offended snort, then looked up at Jesse expectantly.

"Reuben…" Jesse hesitated for a second. "Has a spot on his back."

Reuben turned up his snout at her proudly as though saying, 'Yeah, Olivia! I have a spot on my back!'

Olivia raised an eyebrow. "Right."

Jesse turned to Reuben and knelt down, grabbing his pink face and looking him square in the eyes. "It's okay, boy. She doesn't understand you like I do."

Reuben made a pig-purr and jubilantly lifted a hoof, nuzzling Jesse's face with his snout.

"Will you fetch my sword for me, buddy?"

Reuben squeaked happily and pranced over to Jesse's tool chest, then crammed his face under the lid. While he waited, Jesse turned back to his armor stand and straightened the pumpkin to get it to focus.

Olivia chuckled and Jesse turned once more to face her.

"You two _definitely_ understand each other," she muttered. Jesse couldn't tell from her tone if it was meant to be an insult or a compliment. He took it as a compliment.

Turning to face the poster again, she fingered the sprig of hair above her right ear, staring thoughtfully. Always thinking, that girl. Jesse liked to imagine that her stiff pigtails were cranks for turning the gears in her head.

Reuben returned with the wooden sword in his mouth and Jesse took it, giving him a pat on the head. And so began the battle between man and vegetable.

"—Chickens?"

Jesse blinked. "Huh?"  
"Huuuh?" Olivia mocked.  
"What?"

"It's just a dumb question. Forget it," she said with a wave of her hand, pretending not to care by going about her business.

Oh. She had asked another hypothetical question, hadn't she? Jesse had never been too fond of those, but he didn't want her to think he hadn't been listening—which, he hadn't.

"No, no. Say it again, I'm listening," he said, making sure he actually was this time.

Olivia heaved an irritated sigh. "I said, would you rather fight a hundred chicken-sized zombies, or ten zombie-sized chickens?"

Honestly, Jesse would _rather_ just continue fighting with his pumpkin helmed armor stand.

"Just to be clear, you wouldn't have any weapons or armor, so you'd have to fight them with your hands," Olivia stipulated.

He'd have to think about that…

Assuming these chickens were hostile, such an abomination would be the last thing he would _choose_ to fight, but everyone knew about little zombies. Granted, he'd never fought one, but a fraction of the size meant a fraction of the difficulty, right?

"That's easy," he said, still focused on the intense battle between him and his idle foe. "I'll take the—uhh… the little—tiny—little… zombies."  
"A _hundred_ of them, crawling all over you, with their tiny hands." Olivia started mimicking the groaning sounds of a zombie and Jesse turned around to look at her as she walked in place with her arms extended lazily.  
Jesse smiled. "All I'd need is—like—a shovel. I'm telling you, _way_ too easy."  
"You wouldn't get a shovel, Jesse," she said in a playfully stubborn tone.

"Well… I still think it'd be easy."

"If you say so. _I_ would go with the chickens."

"Why?"

"Because they would be large enough that I could make a trap."

 _Oh boy, here we go…_

"I'd start by making a small structure with windows—you know, to make sure they could see me but couldn't get to me—and then, I would put a lava dispenser on top. Once I had all their attention, I could set it off and kill them all at once."

Jesse couldn't quite get an image in his head of the machine she had described, but understood enough to know that Olivia had just jumped through a huge loophole in her own question. He paused and looked back at her with a raised eyebrow.

"If I don't get a shovel, why do _you_ get redstone?"

"I said no weapons or armor," she stated matter-of-factly, "Redstone isn't either of those."

Jesse could have argued that a shovel wasn't _technically_ a weapon either—it was a tool—but instead he just smiled at her.

"What would you fight, Reuben?" Jesse looked down at the pig now resting at his feet and he gave a disinterested snort with a look that said, 'I'm a pig. I'm not sure what you're expecting me to say.'

"See?" Jesse said with a satisfied smile. "Reuben agrees with me."

"Hey guys," called a familiar friendly voice, and Jesse turned around to see a happy face peeking out from under the floor hatch, topped with a mess of black hair.

That would be Axel. _Finally_.

He squeezed his bulky frame through the double hatch. He was the only person who actually needed both of them to get in. It couldn't be helped, though. If the roof was any lower, he'd probably bonk his head coming in every time.

"Come on, what's taking so long?" he had the gall to ask.

Jesse chuckled and Olivia put her hands to her hips.

"You're kidding, right?" she grumbled.

Jesse crossed his arms and faked an angry face. "Yeah, Axel. Thanks to you, I had to sit here and answer more of Olivia's random hypothetical questions."

Axel smiled and said with his classic monotone, "Oh, Jesse. Can you ever forgive me?"

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Real funny. Now can we please get going?"

« … »

Just one more day before EnderCon. In all the commotion, Jesse had almost forgotten the reason they were meeting in the first place. Each year, before the convention, there was a building competition. Nine years they had competed, and never once had they won. This year was going to be different, though. This year they were prepared. This year, they _couldn't_ lose.

Jesse went over the mental list he'd been memorizing since that morning and divvied the tasks between the three of them.

"When we get to town, I need you to go get the fireworks, Axel," he instructed, "and Olivia, you go for the redstone components. I'll get the wood, stone, and…" Kerflooey. So much for his mental list. "After that, we'll meet back up at the gate."

After an awkward silence, Jesse looked back to see Olivia staring suspiciously.

"Wasn't there something else besides wood and stone?" she asked.

"Yeah, the, uh…" Dispenser? Nope, Olivia was getting that. Lever? No, wait, that was made of wood and stone. "Don't worry, I'll get it."

Olivia frowned. "You know, Jesse, there's this newfangled invention called 'paper.' It's amazing! You can actually write things down so that you don't have to hold it all in your head."

"Aw, writing stuff down is for nerds," Axel jumped in. "Jesse's got this!"

Reuben smiled with a confident oink, and Olivia sighed. "Okay, whatever you—Hey."

Jesse glanced back to see that she had stopped and looked off to the side, prompting him and Axel to do the same. Olivia pointed and muttered, "Isn't that—?"

"Petra?" Axel blasted in excitement.

Jesse followed their gaze to where two people stood talking a short distance away. One of them was the tomboy Axel had been referring to, and the other, a boy with slick blonde hair and sporting a shiny leather jacket. Jesse scowled and Olivia cut in again, "I was going to say, 'Lukas'."

Axel crossed his arms and grumbled, "That jerk. What's _he_ doing talking to Petra? She's _way_ too cool to be hanging around him."

"Well, let's just go interrupt them—I mean talk to them," Jesse casually suggested.

"Yeah, let's go _talk_ to them," Axel said, brandishing his fists.

Olivia gave Axel a condescending look. "Axel."

Jesse knew well enough that Axel wound never actually hurt him, which was good because he was easily twice Lukas' size and could probably kill him by sitting on him.

Sure Lukas was a cocky jerk who also happened to be the leader of the team that had beaten them seven years in a row, but as far as Jesse knew, he didn't deserve to _die_.

"All right, come on," Jesse intervened, waving for Olivia and Axel to follow as he walked toward the two. When he got close enough, he saw that Petra was holding something out to Lukas. No sooner had Jesse taken notice of it, Lukas, it seemed, had noticed him. He zipped to grab the object and hid it behind his back. Petra looked up as the surprise melted from her face, leaving a smile in its place.

"Hey, Jesse. Guys."

"Hey, Petra," Jesse greeted with a cordial smile, trying to pretend Lukas wasn't there.

"You ready for the competition tomorrow?" she asked.

"We're actually out getting our materials now."

"So, you think you guys have a chance?" Lukas cut in, though he might as well have just come right out and said, 'You don't stand a chance.'

Jesse glared at him and had no doubt that Olivia and Axel were doing the same. Even Reuben seemed to be following suit judging by the disgruntled oink he gave. Lukas just gave them a questioning look, as though he hadn't said anything and _they_ were the dummies.

Petra scoffed a laugh and said, "I think what Lukas was _trying_ to say was, 'did you come up with a winning idea?'"

"Huh?" Lukas said, looking confused. He 'bashfully' fingered his ear, prompting Jesse to 'innocently' roll his eyes. "Oh—sure."

Axel smiled and responded as though Petra hadn't just rephrased the question of their arch rival. "Only time will tell, but—we're optimistic. Well… except Olivia."

Olivia turned on him with the same scowl he imagined she'd given Lukas. "Excuse me?"

At that point Lukas cut in, stifling the brewing argument, and Jesse couldn't help but inwardly thank him for it.

"Well, I have to go. Thanks for the, uh… _thing_ , Petra."

"Not a problem, Lukas," Petra said.

"Subtle." Olivia crossed her arms. "As a punch to the face."

"Anyway," said Lukas, "see you guys at the building competition tomorrow."

Axel slumped and grumbled, "Unfortunately."

The two exchanged one last glare, and with that, Lukas turned around and walked away. Axel frowned and turned to Petra. "What was _he_ doing here?"

"Business," came Petra's simple answer.

"You helpedthat tool?"

"For the right price, I'll help pretty much anyone. And hey, _you_ could have asked."

She had a point there, and that gave Jesse a stupid idea. "I don't suppose… there would be any chance you could tell us what it is you sold Lukas?"

Petra gave a wry chuckle before stating simply, "Not a chance."

Jesse shrugged. "Well, it was worth a shot."

"Nah, it really wasn't," Petra laughed. "Well, I'd love to stay and talk, but I need to get going too."

"Where are you headed?" asked Olivia.

"Just meeting someone. No big deal."

So she said, though knowing Petra, it probably _was_ a big deal. Quite literally. Petra started off back into the forest and said, "See you later, guys… and seriously, if you need anything, my door is always open."

Jesse cupped his hands in front of his mouth and shouted after her, "If we can ever find it!"

Petra turned around to face him while continuing to walk backwards in the same direction and gave him a devious look that said, 'you know it.' Then, smiling brightly, she waved back at them.

He could see why Axel liked that girl.

« … »

 _In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps._

 _Proverbs 16:9_

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **Scratch that. As far as I can figure, you can't use tildes at all. - .-**

 **It's not something I'm really proud of, but I'm a very sarcastic person. You'll see this a lot in my writing, and it makes for some funny prose if I do say so myself, but I have to remind myself not to go too far when writing for characters like Jesse. He can be sarcastic, but when talking to his friends, (particularly Olivia) he tends to be more clear.**

 **Oh I'm so impatient! I want to just skip to the fun parts!  
**

 **P.S. I added the tags for the other Ocelots! XD You're welcome, Gamerwhogames. :3**

 **- _Huh?_ — I did this in honor of my sister with whom I have this interaction with everyday. :3**

 **- _Getting Wood_ — I hate to explain my jokes, but for those of you who've played MCSM but not actual Minecraft, this is one of the first achievements you get, and is so easy to get that it's almost not even an achievement, but it's so essential that it kind of has to be.**

 **- _The Pose of the Pig in the Picture_ — This is actually something we taught our dog to do years ago, and I thought it'd been really cute to include it. :) Worry not though, there's more to it than this. :]  
**

 **Choice Notes:**

 **This being a written adaptation of a choice-based game, I'm going to be leaving my notes here for why I made some of the choices I did. You can read these if you want, but they're totally optional. If you're reading with no prior knowledge of the game, there's really no reason to read these unless you're just curious. In case you are, I will keep these spoiler free (at least for the important things) and try to explain things in a way that you could pick up from context. :)  
Note that these won't always say all of my reasoning because sometimes they have to do with things that haven't yet happened.**

 **In order to be able to fit as many of my choice notes in without them being longer than the actual content, some of them will have a '(Continued on request.)' tag at the end if it went on to long. I doubt anyone will really go for this but I have them written, so what the hay?  
**

 **- _Male Jesse_ — This is the first question I ask about every MCSM fic I read—mind you, it's not a determining factor of whether or not I read it by any means—but I thought I should explain _my_ reasoning on this one. I decided to go with male Jesse, not just because he's the one I played with and I'm biased, but simply because it really makes more sense, all things considered, for Jesse to be a he, and since I'm novelizing it as opposed to just writing a normal fic, I figure I should probably do what's best for the story as a whole. ;). Everything that happens really makes it seem like they intended for Jesse to be male, aside from the cover, I mean. There are certain aspects of the story that don't make much sense if Jesse is female. (Continued on request.)**

 **- _Chicken-Sized Zombies_ — Being that this is the first choice in the game, in retrospect I feel like I should say _something_ about it. And even though all of my reasonings for why Jesse chose what he did is in the chapter, I thought I should note that Jesse's answer _would not,_ in fact, be my answer. :P**

 **Glossary :**

 **Note for MCSM players who haven't played Minecraft: Read the one on 'Chicken Jockeys.' ;)**

 **- _Zombies_ — Zombies in this world aren't really people who have been turned into zombies, but rather just creatures. Zombies have one of the longest attention ranges as they can sense people from a mile away. Once they hone in on a target, they focus on it until the target is eliminated, they are eliminated, the target goes out of range, or they acquire a new target.**

 **- _Chicken Jockeys_ — Chicken jockeys are little tiny little zombies that will mount chickens and run everywhere rather than stumble around like normal zombies. They are deliberate in battle and seem to actually have a brain unlike the larger ones that attack mindlessly.**

 **- _Zombie-Sized Chickens_ — Don't exist. :P**

 **** **-** _ **The Ender Dragon**_ **— A giant black dragon (need I say more?). (Okay, fine.) It is located in the End (more on that later) and breathes purple fire. (What? They really don't tell you much about it. Just Google it. :P)**

 **-** _ **Redstone**_ **— Redstone is the electronics of Minecraft. It is very brittle, so it turns to powder when mined, and can be laid out like gunpowder as wiring.** **(Oddly enough, gunpowder** _ **cannot**_ **be laid out like gunpowder.** **o** **.** **o** **)** **Redstone dust can also be used in crafting to make redstone components such as pistons, dispensers, and other more advanced circuitry.**


	4. Pep-arations

**Foreword :**

 **Ah-HA! You thought I was a goner, didn't 'cha? Nopers nope. Not a goner. Just super super busy. :) Sorry this took so long to get out, but if it makes y'all feel better, part of the reason was because I was having way to much fun working on the later parts of the story. (That and there's a flipping ton of plot holes to work out [most of them caused by me trying to fix the plot holes that were already there. . Erm, ahem. Moving on]. Also with Episode 7 having just come out, I haven't been able to stop bouncing off the walls. X) )**

 **Since I'm coming to realize more and more just how wild the MCSM fandom is about shipping, I just thought I should say something: Set in Stone is _not_ a shipping fic. The purpose of this novelization is not to add romances that I wish were there, it's to build upon the story and the relationships that are already there to begin with and add substance to the otherwise ignored, or 'glossed over' relationships, therefore making the story as a whole better. That being said, it's not like I'm never going to go into 'possible' romances, but just because someone is established as liking someone else, doesn't necessarily mean I'm shipping them.**

 **That being said, on with it.**

* * *

Chapter 2 – Pep-arations

««««« … »»»»»

Axel had always been late for their meetings at the treehouse. What with so many people to prank and chickens to torment, he was _very_ busy. That, added to his weight—in muscle, of course—and his recurring tardiness was completely pardonable. However, this time, he had a specific reason for being late, and a good one at that.

Slowly, he crept up the ladder, careful not to make a sound as he approached the trap door to Jesse's treehouse. Inside, Jesse and Olivia were just talking, completely unsuspecting.

« … »

Jesse rummaged through his chest, grabbing any extra tools or materials he thought might come in handy in the upcoming contest.

It was good to have a carrot or two on hand, so he Pocketed three of them. Reuben LOVED the things, and so did he. Not as much as potatoes, but still.

Speaking of which…

"Do you think we have everything we need?" asked Olivia as Jesse stuck a potato in his Pocket.

Jesse pulled his head out of the chest and turned to face her with a flustered look. It was one thing to look for stuff to use—it was another to look for stuff to worry about.

"Olivia, we checked over our materials three times. We're _ready._ "

"What about the fireworks?"

"Axel's bringing them," Jesse told her—for the third time.

Olivia made a confident look.

"Right. Right…" She wilted again and added apprehensively, "I just _hope_ he remembers them."

That was a valid concern, he supposed. Axel was almost as prone to forgetfulness as he was to tardiness. He couldn't _say_ that, though. Olivia was enough of a wet blanket without her every fear being externally reinforced. "Don't worry about it. Everything will be fine."

"But remember last year when we thought we had everything but we forgot the lever to turn it on? Our whole build was ruined!"

Jesse raised an eyebrow. "Do we have the lever?"

"Yeah," she replied uneasily.

"Then we're ready."

"Right."

Jesse smiled enthusiastically. "So we're good?"

Olivia smiled, less enthusiastically. "Yeah."

"Good."

Jesse went back to gathering more knickknacks and grinned with a roll of his eyes as soon as he was safely facing away from her. Always worrying, that girl.

Olivia heaved a resigned sigh and at last changed the subject. "Sooo, I've got a daylight sensor on the roof…"

"Mmm-hmm…" Jesse replied, pretending he had the slightest clue what she was talking about. He pulled a pair of shears from one of the boxes along the wall and stuck it in his Pocket.

"…And if I did this right, these lamps should turn on if it gets dark or overcast."

"Mmm-HMM…"

Closing the box and opening another, he produced a small two-piece trinket and mumbled to himself, "Flint and steel, not too shabby."

"I didn't want to just leave Reuben here with nothing while we're at the building competition."

Jesse stopped and craned his head to face her with a perplexed look. "He's coming with us."

Reuben, who had been off in the corner poking around Jesse's armor stand, bounded over at the sound of his name.

Olivia's face fell. "Really?"

What did she mean, 'Really?'

"I thought we'd been over this, Olivia." Jesse said, standing to his feet and stepping forward. "Reuben doesn't like staying by himself so he's going to be coming with us from now on."

Reuben oinked in agreement.

"Oh, right," she said. "I guess I forgot."

"Besides, this is his first EnderCon. He's _really_ excited about it." Jesse smiled down at Reuben, who was now stepping on his toes and looking tickled pink.

"Okay. I'm not saying he shouldn't come. I'm not… but don't you think it's a little weird that you take him with you _everywhere_ you go?" Jesse made a blank face as she continued, "He kind of makes us look like… I don't know… amateurs."

With his snout in the air, Reuben snorted the pig equivalent of a 'hmph,' then huffed off and hopped on top of the chest in front of the window, giving Olivia a dirty look.

"He's my wingman," Jesse said, looking back to Olivia. "People always wanna talk to the guy with the pig."  
"You mean talk ABOUT the guy with the pig. Like, 'Look at the weird guy with the weird pig. How weird.'"

Jesse looked at her questioningly and turned to Reuben who was again making a 'defend me!' face.

 _Weird, huh?_

Well, yeah, maybe, but so what? Jesse had long since realized that he _was_ pretty weird, and just as long since decided that he didn't care.

"Reuben's my best friend."  
Reuben squealed a happy, "uh-huh," and Olivia gave him a questioning look. "I thought _I_ was your best friend?"  
" _Both_ of you are," he insisted obstinately. He didn't understand why the concept of having more than one best friend was so hard for her to grasp.

Olivia sighed and went on, looking despondent, "I didn't mean anything by it. I'm glad he's coming… I just don't want to give people one more reason to call us 'losers.'" She turned away from him to face the wall. "I'm getting tired of it. I'm tired of being a laughingstock."

Jesse softened.

 _He_ was okay with being weird, but he knew that he couldn't expect that from Olivia. _She_ wanted to be normal—to be 'liked'. At the very least she wanted to be accepted by people who _weren't_ weird, and just the fact that she wanted that so badly and would still stick by her 'weird' friends like slime… it showed a quality of hers that Jesse had always admired.

"We are not losers, Olivia," he said.  
"We lose all the time," she argued. "It's what we do."  
"Okay, okay," he conceded. "That _might_ be true,"  
Before he could think of another point in their favor, she cut in with, "I can't remember the last time we won anything."  
Jesse drew a deep breath, determined even more to cheer her up, even if it would only last long enough for them to win the competition. Then the hype from the victory could do the rest for him.

He then paused for a minute until he decided what was the best thing to say.

"But… just because we're losers, doesn't make us failures."

Olivia looked curiously over at him. "How so?"

"Well, the opposite of losing is winning, but the opposite of failure is success, and you've succeeded at lots of things."

Reuben made a show of agreement and Olivia raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

Jesse opened his mouth just to realize he couldn't think of something off the top of his head, and then thunder sounded in the distance.

He walked over and took a look outside the window behind Reuben to see that dark clouds had begun to obscure the sun, and the anticipated rain began to fall. Behind him he heard a quiet click, and turned to see the lights Olivia had set up now glowing steadily.

Jesse smiled, gladly seizing the convenient opportunity.

He pointed. "Like that."

Olivia blinked, also turning around and taking notice of her achievement. She sighed and then smiled. "If you say so, Jesse."

Jesse smiled back. It wasn't much, but he'd take it.

A hiss issued from the middle of the room below them, and Jesse stiffened.

"Do you hear that?" he asked.

Reuben squeaked fearfully behind him, and the frightened look that crawled onto Olivia's face mirrored his own suspicion.

"Oh, no," she gasped.

Holding his breath, Jesse sneaked over to the hatch, the hissing growing louder as he knelt beside it. He peeked over… and, "BOOM!"

His eyes zipped open at the sight of a creeper right in his face, and he screamed. He flew into a panic and before he knew it, he found himself backed up against the closest wall a good four blocks away. He heard a fearful squeal and in the corner of his eye Reuben reared back on the chest and fell to the ground with a loud thud.

The creeper laughed deeply—the 'creeper,' whom Jesse now realized was far too bulky and intact to actually _be_ a creeper. The delinquent lifted off his green mask, leaving his hair looking just as flat as always. In fact, it seemed to be an improvement.

"Oh, man!" Axel exclaimed. "You guys _totally_ freaked out! That was awes—!"

Axel was cut off by an angry Reuben who had charged and rammed him hard in the stomach. Though, Jesse got the feeling that it didn't hurt Axel as much as Reuben would have liked.

"Axel! What's the matter with you?!" Olivia snapped.

"Great," drawled Axel, ignoring her completely. "Now I'm going to smell like a pig at EnderCon. I thought we were buddies."

Now that the fear of getting blown clear out the window had passed, Jesse said graciously, "You had _that_ coming. Cool mask, by the way."

"It is, isn't it?" he said with a smile. Olivia still looked very angry, glaring at him with her hands on her hips.  
"Yeah," Jesse said, looking away from her and giving Axel a disdainful look. "Very convincing."  
Axel chuckled. "The look on your faces…"

"Did you bring the fireworks?" asked Olivia.

"Of course I did," Axel said, then flippantly brushed aside her concern by adding, "I even brought something for the little guy."

Axel reached with both hands behind his back and produced two pieces of what looked like a small black costume. In one hand was a helmet in the shape of a dragon head, in the other was a set of woolen wings attached to a wooden frame.

"Nice!" Jesse said while Olivia looked somewhat disgusted.

"You brought Reuben a disguise?" she asked as Axel strapped the wings around the pig's belly.

"Um, we're going to a convention," Axel said. " _Some_ body's gotta wear a costume."

Axel shoved the headpiece on next, finishing Reuben's 'disguise.' With that, a miniature Ender Dragon started 'flying' around the room, threatening to get its dirty hoof prints all over the floor. It was hard to tell if he was loving it, or if he was trying desperately to get the thing off. And from the way he roared, he sounded like he could either be outraged, or just doing an incredible dragon impression.

They watched Reuben for a moment before Olivia spoke up, saying, "He looks ridiculous."

"It's a costume, Olivia," Axel said with a smile. "The whole point is to look ridiculous."

"But the Ender Dragon didn't look like that. It was massive and scary, and Reuben—well—Reuben is a _pig_."  
"As long as Reuben is happy, I'm happy," Jesse stated as Reuben hopped up onto the chest beside Axel.

"Happy?" Axel asked him, and he responded with an excited, "Oink!"

Axel smiled and patted him on the head. "Well zippity doo dah."

Since it was his first time going, Reuben must have been happy to have a costume like everyone else there. Maybe dressing up like heroes was all it would take to get noticed.

"You definitely brought the fireworks, right?" Olivia said, starting to sound like a broken repeater.

" _Yes_ , I'm ready. Waiting on you guys."

Jesse caught Reuben, who was running around his feet, and scooped him off the floor, then smiled at his team. "Let's get going, then."

« … »

The rain had cleared and the ground dried. Posters promoting EnderCon and Gabriel the Warrior were tacked to every tree in sight. They were on their way, and thus began the annual competition woes—and it all started with an effort to keep everyone motivated.

"Can you believe it, guys? If we win this year, we get to meet Gabriel the Warrior!" said Jesse.

Ever since they'd learned about that twist in the competition last month, Jesse had been beyond excited. Meeting Gabriel the Warrior would not only be an honor, but a dream come true.

"And what are the odds of _that_?" Olivia sulked, killing his daydream. Jesse frowned. He refused to start _another_ building competition with his team feeling hopeless, no matter how slim their chances were.

"The odds are…" Jesse paused. He wanted to say 'one to one', but that obviously wasn't true. "…refreshed each time."

Olivia gave him a frustrated look. "The ' _odds_ ' are usually ten to one. Fifteen if you're counting the Ocelots, and I'm _not_ counting the weird guy who's always trying to build with cactus."

There was an awkward silence, and then Jesse spoke up again with one more sad attempt to encourage them. "Maybe no one else will show up."  
Olivia made a quizzical expression and muttered dryly, " _Now_ you're being realistic." She heaved a defeated sigh. "We _never_ win. And this year we've got _Reuben_ with us." The pig gave an annoyed grunt and Olivia continued, further lowering the spirits Jesse had worked so hard to raise over the past week. "We basically have no chance. Same as always."

Though Axel wasn't saying anything, Jesse could tell from his silence that the hopeless atmosphere was getting to him. Why was it always so hard to keep them all afloat? That aside, something had to be done.

They needed a spirit boost; A fresh dose of hope. They needed to believe that they had a chance. How could he give that to them…?

It wasn't hard to cheer _himself_ up. All he had to do was look at the 'Hang in there!' poster on his wall—the one with the pig that looked like Reuben.

"Oh, come on, have a little faith, Olivia. It's not like having Reuben around is going to make us lose. Heck, maybe he's what we've been missing this whole time."

"What are you talking about?" asked Olivia, looking confused. Well, it was a step up from depressed.

Jesse smiled. "Our lucky dragon!"

"He's a pig, Jesse."

"Lucky pig?" Axel unhelpfully inserted.

This conversation was getting confusing.

"My point is," Jesse continued, undeterred, "we _can_ win, because… we want this more than anyone."

"How do you even know that?" Olivia grumbled.

Jesse ignored her. "We're _going_ to win because we're prepared, we're motivated, and we've got a pig!"

Axel chuckled and Olivia perked up a bit while Reuben squeaked in satisfaction.

"Those Ocelot's aren't gonna know what hit 'em!"

Axel looked excited and the perpetual cloud over Olivia's head seemed a little less gray. He sensed an air of confidence slowly taking form, and that fired _him_ up as well.

"Up to now we've hated losing. But today, today my friends, we're going to start learning how to _love_ winning." Jesse's smile crumbled. "That didn't sound as good as it did in my head."  
"No, no. I'm with that," Axel offered, bringing back Jesse's smile.

"All right," Olivia said with a smile of her own.

Mission accomplished.

Jesse glanced again at the posters all around and his eyes once again came to rest on one advertising Gabriel the Warrior. Jesse wondered if he'd ever become that famous. It wasn't impossible, and how awesome would it be to be the face on a stranger's poster? He imagined himself striking a heroic pose, flashing a confident smile, and wearing the cool armor he couldn't afford yet. The image made him grin dreamily.

 _Man, posters make everything look better,_ he thought. Then something dawned on him.

He stopped in his tracks. "Guys! Posters!"

Olivia and Axel both looked back at him and asked simultaneously, "What?"

" _That's_ what we're missing for our build!"

"A poster?" Olivia muttered incredulously.

"No, I mean, _like_ a poster." Jesse smiled and scampered over to the nearest tree, pointing to the EnderCon poster tacked onto it. "Take this tree. It looks great on its own, but once you put a poster on it, it stands out from all the other trees."

Olivia gave him a bemused look and glanced around at the surrounding forest. "Un~less, 'all the other trees' have posters on them."

Jesse frowned. "No, that's—that's not the point. The idea of a 'building competition' isn't just to _build_ , it's to _compete._ If you want to _win,_ you have to stand out."

"Stand out? How?"

He thought she'd never ask.

Jesse continued walking with an excitable grin, and his two friends followed curiously as he explained further. "We don't just build something functional, we build something _fun_. After we finish the fireworks machine, like we planned, then we build something in front of it to make it LOOK cool."

Olivia fell in step beside him and gave him an enthusiastic smile. "You might be on to something there."

"If you want to get a reaction out of the judges, you build something scary," Axel pitched in, catching up on Jesse's other side, "so I say we build a creeper."

Jesse beamed with excitement. A monster, now that was something he hadn't thought of, and he _liked_ it.

Apparently Olivia did too. "I like the idea of a monster, but wouldn't an Enderman be better? _I'm_ more scared of Endermen than creepers."

"They both have their moments," Axel said with a shrug. "Both pretty scary."

 _Or maybe,_ Jesse thought. _We could do a different monster entirely! Like A zombie!_

No, that was stupid.

Olivia had a point; there were few things in the world scarier than Endermen…

"Then again, you scared the crap out of us with a creeper today," Olivia pointed out.

Another good point. Creepers exploded, and when killed they dropped gunpowder—the main ingredient used for making fireworks. It couldn't have been more perfect.

Axel looked pleased with himself and pointedly added, "Plus, if we make an Enderman, no one will want to look at it."

That settled it. "Creeper it is."

"You're going with Axel's idea?" Olivia complained.

Was she kidding?! Wasn't she _just_ defending his idea?  
Axel frowned. "What's wrong with my idea?"

"Nothing. It could be totally cool."  
"It _is_ cool."  
"Yeah."

Jesse rolled his eyes and turned his focus to the problem that had spawned from his solution. A new idea for their build meant they were going to need new materials, and they hadn't a moment to waste.

"Okay guys, let's get to work," he said. "We suddenly find ourselves in the market for a _lot_ of green wool."

« … »

 _Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?_

 _Luke 12:25_

 **Author's Notes:**

 **So turns out, you can't use asterisks either. And I can't make an angry face so I have to settle with an Axel face. |:( Yes, I'm still on that. I've been having nothing but trouble with FFN lately, I tell ya. - .-**

 **It occurred to me that Olivia is about twice as pessimistic in this chapter than she is during this part in the game, (thus, twice as 'unlikable') but I didn't want her to come across as the biggest downer ever, so I feel like I should clarify a bit. I tried to get this out as best I could in the actual chapter (I try to make it to where things need an explanation as little as possible) but alas, it didn't come out as best as I think it could have, but the reason I imagine she's SO down right now is because every year they lose one of these contests it just weighs on her more and more and more, and now she's at the point where she's pretty much given up.**

 **- _Building with cactus_ — You don't have to be a Minecraft player to know that this is the worst idea ever. Just to give you non-players a little insight, though, cactus is prickly (duh) so it hurts when you touch it, it can only be placed on sand, or another cactus and cannot be placed directly next to any block. It's also a 'non-solid' block which means you can't mount anything on it, meaning no levers, or redstone, or torches, or redstone torches, or anything useful. It also means that if it doesn't have another cactus or block of sand to rest on, it will not stay supported in midair as most blocks in Minecraft will, but it won't fall, either. It will just poof into its Pocket form. (Hmm… I should have just put this in the glossary. :{ )**

 **Choice Notes:**

 **- _According to my sources…_ — It wouldn't make sense for them to not know about Gabriel being at the competition until now. And my sources do exist, btw. Olivia says later that the show had been sold out for ages. How would she know if they only found out that morning? Fixed!**

 **- _Pocket as in (P)ocket pocket, not (p)ocket._ — Okay, props to you if you even noticed this detail, but just so as not to confuse people, I've capitalized 'Pocket' because I wanted to draw a distinction between the Minecraft's bottomless-pit version of a 'pocket' and what most normal people consider to be a 'pocket'. That way the people reading this who don't know Minecraft like the back of their hand (Hi, Mom! :D) at least have something to go off of and aren't totally confused when I mention them pulling a whole buildings worth of materials out of their 'pocket'. Hence, Pocket.**

 **Speaking of which…**

 **Glossary :**

 **-** _ **The Pocket**_ **— Or known in actual Minecraft as, the inventory, but in MCSM, it's** **often referred to as their** **pocket. In this case, Pocket. Confused yet? :P I promise I'm not trying to make this confusing, but I can't think of a way to make it any clearer, so sorry 'bout that. Anyway, in Minecraft the inventory (like most games) is basically (as I said before) a bottomless-pit. You can hold way more than humanly possible, and whereas with a different kind of adaptation one might want to explain that away, being that it's Minecraft, that's kind of impossible. Fun Fact: It** **ha** **s actually been calculated that Steve (The** **default Minecraft character** **) can carry over** **97,000,000 pounds** **in his inventory at once.  
**

 **- _Slime_ — The equivalent of glue.**

 **- _Redstone Repeater_ — A redstone component that does as its name suggests: repeats a redstone signal.**

 **- _Endermen_ — Very tall, black creatures with long arms and legs and a stubby body. Enderman will move blocks. They have glowing purple eyes. Most of the time they are docile creatures but if a human meets their eyes, even for a second, Endermen will become hostile and beat up the person who looked at them (and they can hit _hard_ ).**

 **- _Creepers_ — The homicidal teenage punks of Minecraft. Hated by all who ever placed a block. they are very quiet, (almost soundless except when walking on sand) and to attack they sneak up on someone from behind, hiss and explode. So naturally they drop gunpowder when killed. They look a vibrant green and are a little shorter than people, having no arms and four legs. Though not the case in classic Minecraft, creepers in MCSM seem to hiss a lot more and bite if they cannot sneak up on someone.**

 **- _C_ _actus_ — Cactus is prickly (duh) so it hurts when you touch it, it can only be placed on sand, or another cactus and cannot be placed directly next to any block. It's also a 'non-solid' block which means you can't mount anything on it, meaning no levers, or redstone, or torches, or redstone torches, or anything useful. It also means that if it doesn't have another cactus or block of sand to rest on, it will not stay supported in midair as most blocks in Minecraft will, but it won't fall, either. It will just poof into its Pocket form.**


	5. Woolgathering

**Foreword :**

 **I should probably mention… I'm also a professional full-time perfectionist. The job pays well, but the hours are _ridiculous_. This job involves going through over a thousand brainstorm recordings to make sure I have literally every detail I've ever come up with for these early chapters _in_ these early chapters, and hence the long wait. Despite all my best efforts, I'm still not completely happy with this chapter, but I've been fretting over it for way too long now, and I just want to get it out there.**

 **Hey, I warned you. However, I think I'm going to be doing a lot of apologizing in the future of this story. In the interest of keeping you all updated, I'm happy to let you guys know that chapter 4 is pretty much completely finished because I've done more work on it than this chapter over the past few months. :) However, there's one detail about it that until I figure out, I will be unable to post it, so the next one could be up in a couple weeks, oooor a few more months. Thank you for being patient with me.**

 **Remember what I said about directing people here? You don't? Of course not, that was like six months ago. Well, it was a _bad_ joke, so whatever. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I am STILL just as dedicated to finishing this story! I've just been a little busy lately… okay, VERY busy, but, you know, whatever.**

 **However unhappy I am with it, I present to you…**

Chapter 3 – Woolgathering

««««« … »»»»»

Why?

 _He'_ _s_ _such a dork._

With his farm-boy getup complete with suspenders, it was amazing he didn't wear a cowboy hat and walk around with a straw of wheat sticking out of his mouth. If he were any dorkier he'd probably carry a hoe with him everywhere he went. Goofy haircut, goofy clothes, goofy voice and a goofy smile. Not going anywhere without his goofy friends or his _pig_ —which he claimed to consider his friend as well. Always optimistic, even when nothing was going his way. He scared at the slightest sign of danger, and yet he was so willing to dive into trouble. He had no shame, yet he was always ready to defend his pride.

Everything from his track record at the EnderCon Building Competition to his weirdo poster fetish just screamed 'loser'…

So why the _heck_ did she like him?

Petra knew herself well enough to know that she didn't just _like_ people for no reason. Up until recently, she didn't even like anyone in the typical sense, let alone… 'like' anyone. Just thinking about it made her head hurt.

She finished gathering her tools, intent on heading into town to get a few more things. If she was going to the Nether, she would need more than just a pick and the iron block from her deal with Lukas.

 _Always_ _ **blocks**_ _with that_ _guy._

Apparently a builder could 'never know when he might need a stack of cobble.' Or _ten_ stacks. Well, at least blocks weren't as lame as pigs. Why couldn't _Lukas_ have been the one she 'liked'? _He_ was cool; smart; nice enough. Kind of a wimp, though… At least _he_ wasn't the walking definition of _un_ cool.

Petra blinked and shook her head.

 _Why the heck am I even thinking about this?!_

Brooding over the merits and drawbacks of two boys. That was a new low for her.

Looking down, she noticed for the first time a chiseled stick in her hand. Whittling. It was a nervous habit; one that had become a lot more prominent over the past couple of months. You'd think after doing it so much she'd be a little better at it, but her wood chunks always just ended up sticks.

She sighed and threw the stick away with the others dotting out her path, her thoughts once again returning to the mystery of her own psyche.

Where had this even started?

« … »

 _She'd been to many towns before, and this one looked no different than they usually did, though she had to admit the security of this one was comforting after the place she had just come from._

 _It was a small village that had no more than twenty people and hadn't seen a traveler in over a decade. She could barely even communicate with the inhabitants for how thick their village accents were._

 _Now, Petra was a good fighter, but there was only so much one girl could do about a sudden horde of zombies. She had fought as hard as she could to save their defenseless little village, but after painstakingly eradicating the creatures, all that remained were the villagers themselves, already rotting as they too limped over to attack her. Even if she hadn't been outnumbered, she wouldn't have had the heart to kill them… so she fled._

 _To comfort herself, she questioned why they hadn't been overrun sooner… But they had survived that long, hadn't they? Did that mean she had led the monsters there? She wasn't one to guilt-trip, but she couldn't help wondering if there was something more she could have done._

 _She had to shake her focus and remind herself that brooding over it wasn't going to help. What was done was done. All she could do now was try to learn from the experience. But… learn **what**? That she hated zombies? That villagers really needed to start building walls around their settlements…? That she wasn't as strong as she thought she was?_

 _Somewhere nearby she heard a commotion, and looked to see a few nervous people walking briskly away from the scene. Curious, Petra walked around the corner, and just a few houses down, a massive building was up in flames._

 _She ran over to the crowd of people gathered out front. Some of them looked curious and some frightened, while still others looked almost excited; people like Petra. There were already water carriers perched atop the buildings to the left and right of it, so it wasn't a danger to anyone as long as everybody got out, and it wasn't every day you got to see a building burn._

 _"You **have** to let me through!" shouted a panicked voice from the front of the crowd. "My friend is in there!"_

 _Well, that changed everything._

 _She wasn't sure if it was instinct or_ _something else_ _, but she_ _pushed_ _herself to the front of the crowd. There stood a boy_ _who_ _looked about her age with brown hair and tanned skin, and he was_ _ **frantic**_ _. Two older men tried to hold him back as he pushed and shoved,_ _trying to get past_ _them._

 _"Sir, we already evacuated everyone!" one of the men assured the boy. "You_ _r_ _friend must be out here somewhere."_  
" _No, you don't understand—_ _"_

 _She couldn't blame the guys on either side of the argument._ _Running inside of a burning building_ _ **was**_ _crazy,_ _but_ _leaving someone to die in that building_ _was even c_ _razier_ _._

 _Nerves steeled, Petra took the boy's distraction for an opening and slipped right past them._

 _"_ _Wait!_ _"_ _one of them shouted, "_ _It's too_ _dang_ _—_ _"_

 _"_ _Hey!_ _"_

 _A_ _few seconds later, the boy_ _from outside_ _caught up with_ _her_ _,_ _wearing a mischievous smile like he'd just gotten away with something naughty._ _She almost asked him if he was crazy,_ _and_ _instead found herself smiling at him._

 _"Where were they last?"_ _s_ _he asked as he ran alongside her._ _  
"_ _Second floor," he said. "He wandered off while I wasn't looking."_

 _The boy made a swift right turn and shot up a flight of stairs. "This way!"  
She hesitated for just a moment before following him. She was surprised at the display of courage from this stranger and wondered if maybe her assistance wasn't even necessary. When she reached the top of the stairs, however, she found her comrade bent over with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath.  
 **Doesn't he know how to breath** **e** **when he runs?**  
After assessing the area she smacked him on the back to keep him moving.  
"There are two ways," she said, but before she could finish, he cut in with, "You take the right, I'll check left."  
Without another word, he ran off. Amazed, she hesitated only a split second before she took off down the right hallway._

 _The air around her was hot, making it a little hard to breathe, but the Nether was hotter. She could take the heat, but that didn't mean she could go sightseeing. If she didn't hurry, the thin air would be the least of her worries._

 _She turned into the closest room. There was nothing, so she kept moving. In the third room she checked, she thought she heard something. It sounded like a frightened whimpering, and it was coming from behind a desk ahead. She cautiously approached, and when she peeked around it, she almost gasped at the sight.  
It was a pig.  
Petra growled in frustration._

 _**We don't** **have time for this!**_

 _The floor could crumble and vanish at any second, and the missing friend was nowhere to be seen. She just hoped he hadn't already been killed.  
She heard a somewhat familiar HISSS and looked up just in time to see a hole in the ceiling, burned through by a glowing orange liquid now pouring out from it, and Petra dodged to the left before it spilled out onto the wooden floor._

 _Lava? No building made almost entirely of wood had lava just lying around so carelessly. That had to mean—_

 _**Griefers!** **THAT'** **S** **how this building went up in flames!**_

 _She should've known. The savages. Stealing what they could and destroying what they couldn't, griefers were selfish jerks who couldn't make anything for themselves, so they just ruined everything for everyone else—and they didn't even have the decency to make the mess easier to clean up afterward._

 _It didn't matter right now. Their time was up, and they HAD to get out of there.  
She ran for the door, then heard a terrified squeal and the little pig darted out in front of her. Her eyes shot open and the next second, she tumbled to the floor. As soon as she could catch her bearings, she looked up and the first thing she saw was the pig's snout, which it promptly shoved into her face.  
"Gah!" she exclaimed, reflexively pulling back. "Stupid pig! Get out of here!"  
She got up and ran past it, but that didn't stop the pig from following right on her heels. Dumb creatures had no concept of personal space. She kept running down the hall, right past the stairway down to the first floor. She had to find that boy and get them out of there ASAP.  
Just as she turned the corner at the other end of the hall, the boy skidded to a stop a block in front of her. She averted her eyes when she saw the distraught and panicked look on his face. He was alone.  
"I'm sorry," she said, "I couldn't—"  
"Reuben!"  
She blinked. "What?"  
The boy knelt down with an awestruck smile, and the little pig ran out from behind her, charging into his waiting arms and oinking in relief. Speechless, Petra just stood there staring. It was all she could do to keep her mouth from hanging open.  
A tremor shook the floor and jolted her out of her stupor. "Come on!" she shouted urgently. "We've gotta get out of here!"  
The two of them—and 'Reuben'— made their way down the stairs and outside where a crowd awaited them with nervous looks, too afraid to go in after them—or just smart enough to know that everyone really had gotten out, and this boy was just being ridiculous.  
As soon as they got through the crowds, the boy exhaled in relief._

 _"Oh, I can't thank you enough,"_ _he said, and his pig oinked what she wished her frazzled mind could interpret as a show of appreciation._

 _But no._ _Agitated and frustrated, Petra_ _spun_ _around and_ _blasted in his face,_ _"_ _Are you KIDDING_ _me_ _?!_ _"_

 _The boy_ _blinked a few times,_ _clearly taken off guard_ _. "Um…_ _What?_ _"_

 _"You ran i_ _nto a burning building to save a pig?!_ _A_ _ **PIG**_ _!_ _"_

 _He looked down at the animal in his arms with a bemused expression, then set it down on the ground._

 _She wasn'_ _t done._ _"_ _You freaked out and made a huge fuss,_ _all over_ _ONE PIG._ _Y_ _ou didn't even_ _ **tell**_ _me_ _it was a pig_ _!"_

 _"_ _Oh yeah,_ _"_ _he said stupidly, rubbing the back of his head. "I probably should've mentioned that."_

 _"_ _No freaking kidding!_ _Of all the brainless,_ _thickheaded—_ _What kind of idiot are you?_ _You_ _seriously_ _think_ _that_ _scrawny little—_ _porkchop_ _is worth_ _ **dying**_ _for?!"_

 _With that, he did last thing she would have expected. He smiled._

 _"Heck yeah!"_

 _She did a double-take, any further words of disapproval catching in her throat. He didn't look mad or sound mad, nor did he show any regard to the insults she had piled on him. Just said, 'heck yeah' as if it were the most plain thing in the world. As if there were no difference between that pig, and a human being._

 _Looking down at the sad and presently traumatized face on Reuben the pig, she frowned as something astounding occurred to her. For anyone to risk their own life for someone else took great courage, but to do so for an animal took more than that. It took devotion. She thought it very strange that he would act as though he, himself, was of no more value than that pig, but maybe to him… he **wasn't**._

 _She looked away and, shocked at the shameful feeling her heart managed to conjure, simply muttered, "Oh… okay."_

 _He thanked her again, but with her mind inexplicably sent into a state of bewilderment, she couldn't find it in herself to respond._

 _As she wandered the forest around the city walls in search of a new place to take refuge, her focus wandered between all of her most recent memories. She arrived in this town feeling more defenseless than usual, and after running through a burning building she felt… not just more alive, but like… she wasn't alone. She had saved the life of a dear friend that wasn't hers, but for some reason, that bothered her more than it assured her. She had always been more comfortable on the move, and found hiding in caves preferable to 'real' shelter, but this time…_

 _Maybe it was just in her head, but this time, the empty cave she found didn't seem… good enough._

« … »

That's just who she was. Everyone's acquaintance, nobody's friend. However, that day, something in her had changed. A voice she hadn't heard in a long time spoke up and echoed for more than a distant acquaintanceship with someone. In her frazzled frame of mind, she couldn't help but consider it. In that village, she'd had no support, no one to watch her back when everything spun out of control. No one would have even known—or cared—if she had died, and this, like few things, scared her. Once this sunk in, it seemed everything else fell into place. She needed someone. Someone who she could rely on and turn to when things looked tough. Someone who could stand up for her even as she stood up for them. Someone who would die for her, someone… worth dying for.

Then she met Lukas. He was interesting. Probably the only reason she even held one conversation with him was because she was in a weakened state. He was so kind and generous, to the point where it bordered on gross. But, with her newfound resolve, she forced herself to at least _try_ to socialize with him. She had to admit, she didn't regret it in the least. The idea of just having 'someone to talk to' had always sounded so cheesy to her, but after all this, she completely understood. However, it couldn't be _Jesse_ , so Lukas' friendship had turned out to be exactly what she needed to get through this breakthrough of hers, whether he knew it or not. Yup, he was exactly what she needed, all right… right up until her first EnderCon.

What a cruel irony that her two new best friends turned out to be sworn enemies.

Petra had only watched from a distance as Jesse and his friends grew closer together, while _her_ precious few friends grew farther apart, and it was starting to bother her. She wondered why that was. She usually didn't give a care if the people she knew liked each other or not, but like most of her recent discoveries, she was confident that she'd never understand this about herself. The Creator certainly had a sense of humor, trying to get her to play peacemaker between the two rival teams. The funny thing was, she was about to play right into His hand. If she couldn't keep the moon from rising, why bother trying to fight herself? Still, she couldn't help but grumble about how if it weren't for Lukas' stupid friends, this wouldn't be a problem. Then again, if it weren't for _her_ stupid feelings, this wouldn't be _her_ problem.

 _Ugh… feelings._

She made her way into town and the streets were bustling as everyone hustled to get everything ready for EnderCon. Large black and purple wool arches stood overhead set up every twenty blocks or so, and posters for various events hung on the walls of every building in sight. It was even more crowded than last year when they had a 'live' and 'completely safe' Enderman display. How they had managed _that_ was beyond her.

Why had Ivor chosen _toda_ _y_ as his deadline for her? The Nether wasn't exactly the most pleasant place to spend a Saturday, and it was hard enough to go through the Nether, and back, when she didn't have to go through town, and back, when everyone and their dog was on the road. And with a celebrity making an appearance this year, the last minute rush for building materials was practically a competition itself.

Petra paused.

 _Oh, that's right._

She had almost forgotten that the Building Competition was held several hours _before_ EnderCon, 'to provide them time to be able to set up the winning build'—don't ask how she knew that regulation word for word. That meant it would be happening right now. She wondered if there would be time to drop by and wish them luck. Probably not, though. Not if she was going to have time to get that skull, and that had to take priority.

After grabbing the remainder of the resources she needed, she checked her mental list once more, then turned to head back to the cave where her Nether portal was—outside of town.

She sighed. She'd left this town many times, but she wondered if she would ever leave for good. Her lifestyle was so different from the others, and she was already getting a little stir-crazy. Did she have a future here, with her new friends? Or was she just doomed to live a confusing and emotional life from now on? Would she be better off just leaving this all behind?

No. As long as her feelings stayed in this town, leaving wasn't even an option, but she wouldn't be satisfied with her life here, nor would she feel peace about leaving, as long as her friends were enemies. She had to do something, but wondered if it was even possible to unite them with the teams being so diametrically opposed, and their leaders each being so devoted to their own teams. Even if it wasn't, she had to try. To fight. If there was one thing she was good at, it was fighting, so that's what she would do, even if by fighting she'd—

"Die!"

Petra stopped dead in her tracks. She looked around, and who should she see but Jesse himself running toward her, along with his clumsy patchwork friend, nerdy friend, and token pig 'friend' who was decked out in some kind of weird costume.

They slowed to a stop in front of her, and while Axel looked like he might pass out right there, Jesse rested his hands on his knees and looked her in the eyes.

 _He still doesn't know how to breathe when he runs._

"We need dye!" Jesse rasped, then took a deep breath.

"Dye?" Petra repeated.

Jesse continued, "Well, we actually need green wool, but we have the wool already."

"No we don't," said Olivia.

Jesse looked surprised. "What? But I thought it was on the list!"

"That was _yesterday_ , and you didn't make a list."

Petra couldn't help but give a condescending chuckle. This was so like him. "You at least remembered the lever this time, right?"

Jesse frowned. "Oh my gosh, Petra, that was _one time_!"

"As I recall," Petra began, "that _one time_ your build scored lower than a combination egg and apple harvester that consisted of a caged chicken over a hopper with a dirt block on top." She hadn't actually been there, but as told to her later by Lukas, it was also the only time he'd ever seen Jesse throw a temper tantrum. The thought of it made her chuckle. The Ocelots, of course, had still won.

Jesse looked offended and crossed his arms. "Hey, at least ours had more than _two_ blocks."

"Dude, we don't have time for this!" Axel cut in.

"Right! Right," Jesse exclaimed, instantly snapping back to action. "Change of plan. Petra, we need green wool, _stat_. Is there any chance you have a stack lying around?"

"No," she replied. "I _do_ have the green dye, though."

"Shoot! What are we going to do without the—Oh, wait!" He smiled, then proudly announced, "I have shears!"

Jesse stuck both hands in his pockets and started fishing around in his inventory.

Petra raised an eyebrow. "You just carry shears around?"

Jesse smiled and looked up at her while apparently struggling to reach something. "Hey, never know when you might need to shear some sheep."

He pulled out a few miscellaneous items and returned each to his Pocket as they failed to suit his need.

"No, that's—a hoe…"

Aaaand, there it was. _Congratulations, Jesse. You are officially the dorkiest hick in town._ Petra rolled her eyes.

"A carrot…"

The pig perked up happily and Jesse shoved the carrot back into his Pocket only to pull out the next worst thing.

"Ooh, a potato!" he said with a grin.

Olivia frowned impatiently at him. "Jesse!"

"Right, right."

Petra smiled. It wasn't uncommon at all for people—especially scatterbrained people such as Jesse—to stuff something in their Pocket only to forget about it and find it weeks later, but something about Jesse getting so thrilled about a potato was just… cute. Still, what was _really_ amusing was the fact that he had things stored in his Pocket that any farmer would have lying around his house, such as vegetables, allegedly some shears, and a _hoe_ , like he might just up and decide while walking through town that he really wanted to plant a garden right then and there on a stranger's lot.

Thinking about this while she watched him pull out some seeds—still looking for his shears—she let out a small laugh, disguised with an annoyed hand to her forehead, and said, "You are such a farm boy."

"Ah-ha!" He pulled a pair of shears from his Pocket and whipped them into the air as a cooler person might a sword. "All right, guys, we're going to gather as much wool as we can in the next ten minutes."

"Are you sure this is—" Olivia started, but was briskly interrupted by Axel.

"Let's get to gatherin' then."

"Great," said Petra with a smile. "Meet me back here with your wool, and I'll get the dye."

"Awesome," they each said in some form or another, then booked it back the way they'd come from like their lives depended on it. Petra then sped off and took their cue to pick up her own pace. She was already running on borrowed time.

« … »

When she had first received this dye as a token of gratitude for a _very_ small charitable act, she was almost tempted to throw the stuff out—When would she ever need to dye anything green, especially in such a massive amount?—but now she was glad she hadn't.

She stuffed the dye in her Pocket and started to make her way through the forest back to their meeting spot. She was surprised, however, when she heard a rustling nearby. She looked around and sure enough, there were Jesse and his friends scrambling about in a flock of sheep trying to get them to cooperate.

"You think that's enough?"

"It has to be! We need to get going."

The four of them started to shuffle out and Petra ran to meet them.

"Petra?" one of them pointed her out, and the others looked toward her.

"Fancy meeting you here," she said.

"Perfect timing," said Jesse.

Petra walked toward them, acting as if she were in no hurry of her own. She pulled out the dye and placed it in his hand and he quickly passed it to Olivia behind him.

"Awesome. Okay, what do we owe you?"

For some reason Petra was surprised by this question, but she was more surprised that she hadn't considered that herself yet. She stared at him for a minute while in thought, and this seemed to make him nervous. Being in a hurry did that sometimes. "Mmm… You know what? Don't worry about it."

Jesse blinked, looking baffled. "What?"

His friends gave each other a bewildered look, and the pig oinked—one might say sounding surprised.

"Just keep it, Farmer Boy."

"You're—you're not going to charge us?" he wondered, wearing the same stupefied look.

 _I didn't pay for it. Why should they?_

She tried to convince herself that was the only reason, but she knew it wasn't. Putting on her best look of nonchalance, she said, "Don't you have a competition to get to?"

The intrigued look on Jesse's face melted into panic again.

"Oh, right!" he exclaimed, and hustled his friends back toward town before turning around to face her once more. "Thank you so much, Petra. You're a lifesaver!"

With that, Farmer Boy rushed to catch up with his friends, and Petra smiled.

She was starting to walk away when it hit her what she was forgetting. She turned back again and shouted after them, "Good luck, guys!"

They waved back, and just as she was about to turn around again, she saw Axel stop in his tracks, saying, "Wait, guys. We need a face. What creeper is creepy without a face?"

"Oh shoot, you're right," said Jesse. "We need ink."

Jesse glanced left and right as though there would be some just lying around, and as Petra started to wonder if maybe she had some, Jesse dashed off and took a plunge into the nearest lake.

The answer to the question 'Why?' really was simple, but it was moments like these—moments that reminded again and again of just how far Jesse would go for his friends—that made her smile and think to herself, _Oh._ _ **That's**_ _why._

« … »

 _Consider the blameless, observe the upright; a future awaits those who seek peace._

— _Psalm 37:37_

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **Boy howdy! That was a doozie!**

 **Not sure why, but for some reason, I feel the need to say _again_ , that THIS IS NOT A SHIP FIC. By now I somewhat doubt any of the Luktra shippers are still with me, but for those of you among the Luktra shippers who _are_ still with me, I give you my thanks for being open-minded. As much as I wish everyone were like this, I will confess that I myself have a hard time sometimes reading fics for pairings that I don't ship, so I'm not really one to talk, but to those of you who will let others have their way and not be belligerent, you have my respect.**

 **- _Petra —_ I'm sure my version of Petra's character doesn't fit a lot of my readers' headcanons, but as I've said before, I'm trying to figure out their characters to the best of my ability, and her character in episode 1 was pretty badly developed and inconsistent. For example, she acts like a mercenary the first time they meet her, saying things like, "For the right price, I'll help anyone," but then she acts all noble when the Wither Storm attacks. Or later, she says that she 'doesn't want to stoop to his level,' and then later does exactly that with the gold sword. Suffice it to say, I had to eventually settle on something, but my apologies if her character doesn't match your headcanon. All that being said, it just sort of happened that in my version, she is a lot more introspective and reminiscent than you would expect. It's obvious in this chapter mainly focusing on flashbacks and history and whatnot, but I've also noticed this a lot in later scenes as well.**

 **- _Reuben?_ _Reuben? 0.0_ — You—as in the die-hard Reuben fans (Hi, mom! :D)—may have noticed that Reuben doesn't seem to do a lot in this chapter. Part of the reason is that it can be hard to think of ways to work him in, but in this instance I ignored him on purpose unless he did something noteworthy. I figure since Petra doesn't really think of Reuben as a person, (to be fair, he's not) she's not going to notice every time he does anything, unlike Jesse who would note every little oink and squeak.**

 **- _K_ _ind of a wimp_ _and so nice he's gross_ —I once again feel like I should note that Petra thinking that Lukas is a bit of a wimp among other things _isn't_ an attack on the Luktra shippers. This is just how she thinks, especially in her current state. However, if you must, you can imagine it's because she's… 'in denial.' :J**

 **- _The Creator_ — No, I don't mean Notch. I mean God. God with a capital 'G'. I don't know about you, but I've always found it weird that a lot of players think of Notch as the Minecraft 'god', but those same people generally portray Notch as being evil, or just a jerk for no reason. That's not how I imagine the Creator of this world is. **

**Choice Notes:**

 **- _My_ _Jesse_ — I was almost reluctant to even bother slaving away for another hour trying to figure out the best way to describe Jesse's hair color since everyone's going to picture him however they imagine him anyway, but this _is_ a novelization. You might think this is silly, but I actually find it REALLY hard to imagine Jesse with any other skin than the one I've always played with. For some reason, white Jesse just looks really weird to me now. _ **

**Glossary :**

 **- _Villagers_ — There are no villagers in MCSM but they are mentioned, and all you need to know about them is that they live in little villages and go about their lives trading until they get overrun by zombies. This is borderline inevitable unless they get help from the player because they're so stupid that they can't tell sometimes if they're indoors. Of course this is just because of their AI and I don't think they would be this stupid in MCSM. My interpretation is that they're like natives that share the same language but have thick accents that make them hard to understand, so most people generally stay away from them just because they're so different.**

 **- _Lava_ — Lava is one of the most common Griefer tools and it falls much slower than the speed of gravity. **

**- _Griefers_ — Griefers are there to do just this: cause grief. In this world, griefing is practically a sport. Most griefers at least can take what they dish out, but sometimes they're just idiots with too much TNT.**

 **- _Carrots_ — Pigs love carrots. :3**

 **- _Ink_ — You get ink from squids which in this world you can find in almost any body of water.**

 **-** __ _ **Stacks**_ __ **— This is barely worth mentioning, as it's more Minecraft terminology than an actual game dynamic, but in the interest of being thorough, a 'stack' is how Minecrafters refer to the maximum amount of something you can have without it taking more than one space in your inventory. For most items, this amount is 64, but sometimes it's 16.**


	6. Calling Names

**Foreword :**

 **Whew…Yeah… I've been busy. :/ And—Yeah, I'm not gonna make any excuses.**

 **Well, here it is! The next chapter! I could've sworn I had something more to say on the matter, but I've been away from this for a while because of life stuff. I apologize in advance because this chapter is pretty slow, mainly because this part in the game was really slow, but I did a pretty good job of making it go even slower. I at least hope I did an okay job of making it interesting. Well, hope you enjoy! :)**

Chapter 4 – Calling Names

««««« … »»»»»

"Did we make it?" Jesse gasped out, leaning against the check-in stand.

"Hmm, let me see…" said the lady running the stand, looking annoyingly calm. She checked her watch and took an oddly long amount of time doing so before she looked back up with a smile. "With fifteen minutes to spare."

Jesse sighed in relief while Olivia and Axel gave each other a high-five.

"A little frazzled, are we?"

"Uh. Yeah," Jesse mumbled, taking in the area around them. The forest atmosphere invoked an air of creativity, and the slight overcast from the morning rain made the weather perfect for building. Nothing harder than trying to build under an angry sun.

"Forget to set your daylight sensor?"

Jesse looked at the lady and blinked. He assumed her comment had something to do with redstone, but before he could ask, Olivia happily stepped in. "Some people use a sort of redstone clock to wake themselves up early with note blocks or lights. She's asking if we slept in."

"Sounds like torture," Axel grumbled.

"Bravo!" the lady praised. "No one ever gets that joke. You must be very good with redstone."

Olivia blushed slightly and looked down at the floor. "Oh, not really."

"And modest. You know, you remind me of my daughter, Gloria, in Redstonia. Very talented girl. She even looks a bit like you. Of course, Redstonia has a bad habit of rooting the humility out of people. I guess it's all the stuck-up engineers there."

"You've been to Redstonia?" asked Olivia.

"Once or twice," the lady said with a smile. "Just to visit."

"I've always wanted to go there. What's it like?"

She shrugged. "Lot's of sand, lots of redstone, lot's of red sandstone."

Jesse yawned.

"Wow!" exclaimed Olivia. "That sounds awesome!"

"It is pretty nice, yeah."

"I would love to meet Ellegaard."

"Aah, so would my daughter. I think you two would get along."

"Is she good with redstone too?"

"I would think so! She learned from the best!" she chuckled. "Kidding."

Jesse yawned louder.

"What have you made?"

"Well…"

Jesse's brain practically turned to mush when the lady started listing off a dozen of what he assumed were machines of some kind. While Olivia looked genuinely interested, even enraptured by this technobabble, Axel rolled his eyes and mouthed something to Jesse. Either 'girls' or 'nerds'. Either one would have been appropriate.

Finally, Jesse loudly cleared his throat, and Olivia looked back at him.

"Oh, right. We'd better, uhh… yeah."

The lady chuckled again. "All righty, then." She grabbed her quill and put it to her paper. "Team name?"

Jesse looked at her, stupefied as Axel read his mind. "Team name?"

"You didn't hear? Gabriel the Warrior wants to announce the winning team at the keynote tonight, so we're having every team pick a name this year."

Suddenly, the pressure was on, and Jesse couldn't help but think that in this respect, the Ocelots had already beaten them.

"We are _not_ ready for this," Axel spoke up after a moment of silence.

"So much for losing anonymously," added Olivia, though Jesse couldn't remember a single time any of them had mentioned that. He loathed to think _that_ was her best case scenario.

"Umm… Could we—have just a minute?" Jesse asked.

Still smiling, the lady nodded her head. "I don't see why not."

Jesse smiled back, then led the three of them off to a nearby tree where they huddled together.

"We've never had to choose a team name before," Olivia said.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," said Jesse. "Any ideas?"

Axel and Olivia looked at each other and then back at him with embarrassed smiles that said, 'it's all you, Jesse.'

Jesse bit his lip and averted his eyes, thinking.

"How about, the 'Order of the Pig'?" he said dramatically.  
Reuben gave a pig-laugh. Olivia raised an eyebrow and she and Axel each spoke in turn.

"Really?"

"Is it meant to tie us to Reuben, or are you making fun of me?"

No luck there. "The 'Dead Enders'?"  
"Woah. Sounds like a name for pirates," drawled Axel.  
"What does it even mean?" questioned Olivia.

Jesse grunted in frustration. While Olivia seemed perfectly happy shooting down ideas she didn't even help come up with, and neither of them seemed to have any of their own, Jesse thought hard for another moment. Just when he was about to give up, something came to him that he was sure they would like.

Jesse smiled. "I know! The Nether Maniacs!"  
"You just thought of that _right_ _now_?" Axel asked.

"Yup," Jesse stated proudly.  
"We've never even been to the Nether," Olivia cut in, and at that, Jesse threw hands up and exclaimed in exasperation, "Who the Nether cares?!"

Olivia gasped. "Jesse! Watch your mouth!"

"Well we can't just go in as the 'No Names,'" Jesse said, and then their attention was turned to Axel. "Guys, I got it! The 'Order of the Ender Maniacs'!" Olivia gave him a perturbed look. "I don't know about tha—"

"Or if you'd prefer, we could go as the 'Dead Nether Pigs'."

Olivia scowled. "At this rate, I think I'd be fine going in as the 'No Names'. Or if we NEVER want to live it down, we could just go in as 'Dead Meat'."

An awkward silence fell on them. Finally, Jesse spoke up again. "Dead Meat it is."

Olivia planted a hand on her forehead with a sigh, while Axel, despite looking speechless, also looked like he was holding back laughter.

They returned to the booth, and right as Jesse was about to say 'The Order of the Ender Maniacs,' an idea dawned on him. His eyes lit up, and with one last attempt at salvaging whatever grain of hope his comrades had left, he announced, "We're the Quincunx Stars."

Olivia and Axel were apparently left speechless from the lack of criticism they gave.

"Okay, Quincunx Stars," she said after they finished checking in, jotting the name down on her paper, then smiling up at Jesse once more. "You guys are in Booth 5."

Jesse smiled. It sounded even cooler when someone else said it.

Axel had to squeeze through a gate far too small for him to get in, then stopped to help Reuben get his wings through. Once they were inside, Olivia marveled, "Wow Jesse, that's so cool!"

Axel caught up and added, "It's more than just 'cool'. It's awesome!"

Jesse smiled bashfully, rubbing the back of his head.

"Yeah," Olivia agreed enthusiastically. Then she paused and put a finger to her chin in thought for a moment. "What does it mean?"

Jesse blinked. He was hoping she wouldn't ask that.

"I… have no idea."

Olivia blinked this time, and he explained further, "I just saw it on a poster."

"Oh. Now I've got to look it up to make sure it doesn't mean anything dumb."

"Oh, will you relax, Olivia? No one else is going to know what it means either."

"Yeah, Olivia," said Axel. "It doesn't matter, it's still a cool name."

Jesse smiled triumphantly as Axel went on.

"Man, we have what we're building and all the stuff for it. We've got a cool name, a mascot," Axel looked down at Reuben who oinked happily. "We are _so_ ready."

"I think this might be the first time we've completely decided on something _before_ getting to the competition," Olivia said, sounding hopeful... for _once_. "This year, it's going to be different. I just know it!"

"That's the spirit."

Of course, just when Jesse thought they would enter one of these things with a shred of hope, some random guy wearing a 'Soren the Architect' hat and an EnderCon t-shirt ruined everything in the short time it took him to walk by them and say, "Nice pig, losers."

Jesse glanced back at his team, and of course, Axel looked downhearted while Olivia wore an indignant scowl. Jesse continued on and said the only thing that came to mind that he thought might help. Nothing.

Like most years, Olivia and Axel headed straight for their booth to compare themselves to the competition, while Jesse made the rounds to _survey_ the competition.

Unlike most years, he was surprised to find that a competition where usually only five, ten teams competed, was now crowded with over a hundred people from what looked like fifty different booths.

"It's like everyone in town is here," he mumbled to himself. There had never been so many people at this competition, but then again, Gabriel the Warrior had never been the grand prize before. It made sense after all, but it was a good thing they had reserved a booth in advance.

Most of the contestants in Booth 1 were pacing back and forth per the norm; Always punctual, never prepared. Booth 2 seemed confident despite the fact that their cobblestone generator was about to become the world's most short-lived obsidian generator. Everyone in Booth 3, however, was running around like chickens that had been standing too close to lava. And then there was Booth 4.

Jesse stopped.

"I don't like the look of this," he muttered to himself. It was bad enough having to compete against the Ocelots, but being within shouting distance during the competition didn't bode well for keeping everyone going under pressure. Maybe they _shouldn't_ have reserved a spot.

Jesse looked over at his own booth in hopes of seeing Axel and Olivia completely oblivious to this, but of course, they were _already_ worrying behind his back. Groaning in frustration, he walked over to them.

"Man. They've got matching leather jackets and everything," Olivia worried as he approached.

"So cool…" Axel worried back.

Jesse looked again at the Ocelots, who were now setting up their materials… or rather, _Lukas_ was setting up their materials and briefing the rest of them while they stood watching idly, barely listening—or so Jesse assumed. Lukas demonstrated something by pulling out a small glass item with another small glowing block inside. Jesse considered jumping on the worry wagon himself when he recognized what it was.

Axel perked up and stood tiptoe—as if he needed the extra height boost—peering anxiously over their fence into the Ocelot's building area.

"Is that a freakin' beacon?" he said. "They have a freakin' beacon?! _Frea_ _con_ _beacon_?!"

Freacon Beacon was right. Beacons were crafted using two of the most valuable ingredients known to man; Obsidian, and a Nether Star. Heaven knows where they got one got one of those. Certainly, they couldn't have killed their own Wither, so how in the Overworld had they gotten their hands on a beacon?

Jesse's eyes widened when it hit him. _That must be what Petra sold them yesterday._

"That's stained glass," Olivia observed, pointing out the variety of colored glass that Lukas pulled out next. "They aren't just building a beacon… they're building a _rainbow_ beacon."

Jesse murmured, "A beacon sounds awesome," and instantly regretted it.

"What's that?" Olivia asked.

"Oh, nothing! I said… nothing."

Regardless, Olivia wilted and said, "We're gonna lose."

Just then, as though summoned by the mere dread of his presence, one of the members of the Jerkelots strutted over, looking important. If it weren't for the stupid grin plastered on his empty face, Jesse _might_ think he _was_ important.

"Well, well, well," Aiden taunted, calling the attention of Thing 1 and Thing 2. "If it isn't the Order of the Losers."

Jesse raised an eyebrow at him. This comment might have been insulting had he not heard the same joke worded differently every year since their third competition.

"Great, the fail squad's here," said the girl Ocelot whose name Jesse could never remember... 'Lila' or 'Mia' or something like that.

Thing 2—AKA Gill—gave Jesse a snide look and said, "Lukas, get a load of these losers."

Lukas pulled his head out of a chest and glanced over at them just long enough to not do anything about it. Then he turned back to his task.

"We're just looking," Olivia hastened to explain with an irritated look on her face.

Aiden smirked. "There'll be plenty of time for you all to _look_ at it after it wins and gets shown at EnderCon. Well…" He paused, regarding Reuben, "maybe not all of you. EnderCon doesn't allow outside food or drink."

Reuben flinched and Jesse scowled back at Aiden, trying to think of some witty comeback. Before he could, though, Aiden added, "I'm talking about your pig." And as though he were talking to someone at his own intelligence level, Aiden explained even further still, "I'm saying he's food."

Jesse blinked, unsure if he should qualify that insult with a response. Any other time Jesse knew he could have said _something_ to make him sound stupid, but it seemed Aiden had already done that.

He decided to just let him bury himself.

Aiden's snide smile finally disappeared and he broke eye contact with Jesse for the first time, looking around as though pondering something else to say—like he hadn't said enough already.

He supposed eventually Lukas had had enough as well, because he finally came storming over with an irate look on his face. "Stop wasting your time, Aiden," he said, then pointed back to their own booth. "We've got work to do."  
Jesse couldn't help but smile at Aiden being told off by his own boss, and relished the defeated scowl Aiden wore when he turned back to Jesse and said, "You're lucky I'm busy."

 _Lucky my bucket,_ Jesse thought. If it weren't for Lukas every year, the rest of the Ocelots would just make fun of Jesse's team until the contest was over and they would have no trouble winning. Stupid Lukas.

The rest of the Ocelots meandered past Lukas back to their booth, but Lukas stayed put. He stared after them, and once they were gone, he looked back to Jesse and his team and took a step forward.

"Listen, no hard feelings guys. I know tempers tend to run hot for these competitions, but why don't we just forget about all this, and, y'know… make this about how cool our builds are."

Jesse peered behind Lukas at the rest of his team, who were still watching instead of working, and deduced from the looks on their infuriated faces that they hadn't reached the same conclusion as their 'leader'. It was hard to take his call for a truce seriously when _his_ wingman was glaring at them over his shoulder. Stupid Aiden. Stupid Gill. Stupid—whatever her name was.

Why did Lukas have to do this every year? Why did he have to insist on being sportsmanlike? Well, at least he wasn't spitting in their faces by wishing them luck like he usually did.

With a determined scowl, Jesse said, "We're going to crush you."  
Lukas gave a condescending chuckle. "I don't know if you know this, but… we're pretty good…" He paused and smiled cunningly. "Ohhh, wait. I get it. It's like a joke, right?"  
Jesse frowned and put on the toughest face he could muster. "No, I'm _serious_. We're going to destroy you."  
"Ha! Y'know, you're really funny. That's awesome. Hey, good luck."

Jesse glared, and Lukas' cocky smirk wilted a bit.

 _Yeah?_ _Well, y_ _ou can keep your luck 'cause you're gonna need it more than we will!_ Jesse taunted in his head, and as his attention was called away by the announcer, he could've slapped himself. _Man, I should've_ _ **said**_ _that!_

"Ladies and gentlemen… Welcome to the 23rd annual EnderCon Building Competition. The winners of this year's competition, as usual, will have their build featured at EnderCon. The winners will also meet, in person, Gabriel the Warrior!"

As soon as they were proclaimed, the words of the announcer were swallowed up in a roar of cheers by the hundred-plus people, Jesse's team included. Determined even more to win the competition, Jesse resolved to focus

on winning and to think no more of the Ocelots and their freacon beacon.

Of course, right then, like the recurrence of a nightmare or a bad headache, Jesse heard an enthusiastic chant of, "Ocelots!"

Frowning, he turned to see their rival team enacting some weird ritual.

"Ocelots!"

Maybe they were performing a human sacrifice.

"Ocelots!"

Maybe they would sacrifice Aiden! He could dream, couldn't he?

"Whoa… Handshake?" Olivia marveled, and pointing at them, she turned to Jesse. "We don't have a handshake."

Like a handshake was _so_ impressive. They probably weren't even going to sacrifice anybody.

Jesse laughed at himself.

If it made Olivia feel more secure, though, what was the harm? "We'll just make one up."

Jesse raised a fist in front of him and Olivia and Axel gave each other odd looks, but followed his lead.

"We'll call it the… uuhhhhhh…" Jesse paused, and Olivia and Axel waited with uncertain expressions. Jesse thought about their build, and an idea came to him.

Jesse smiled. "The Creeper Clap!"

Jesse went in for a double high-five, which Axel enthusiastically missed, and Olivia halfheartedly met, then threw back his splayed out hands, and vocalized a mock explosion. Olivia and Axel were both left looking utterly confused.

"Get it? Like—'cause—creepers explode?"

Olivia blinked, and a long moment later, Axel mused with mild interest, "Ohhhh. Heh."

As quickly as he'd been proud of himself, Jesse hoped no one would remember this moment. "You know what? Handshakes are for dweebs, anyway."

"Aaaand just like that, I'm nervous again," said Olivia.

Jesse wilted slightly. Yeah, his handshake hadn't panned out, but so what? He wasn't about to let all this go to waste, and he _refused_ to resign himself to another year of idiots like Aiden calling them all losers. They _had_ to win. "Don't talk like that! We can do this! Just stick to the plan and everything will be fine."

Olivia looked somewhat comforted by this. "Okay."

"Let's do it," Axel said.

It would have to do, because at that moment, the announcer lady spoke again. The competition was about to start. Jesse's heart leaped and he took a deep breath.

 _We_ _ **can**_ _do this._

"Three…"

Jesse patted Reuben on the head and got in position.

"Two…"

He looked to his right and gave Olivia a reassuring nod that she returned.

"One…"

To his left, Axel frowned in determination.

Jesse braced himself, as the last word before the horn entered his ears.

"BUILD!"

« … »

 _He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name._

— _Psalm 147:4_

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **OoooOOooH! What's gonna happen? :O I know, not the best 'cliffhanger' ever, but I had to end it somewhere, and I have plans for the next chapter that wouldn't fit into this one. :] I regret to inform that it'll probably be another while though. I would offer a preview, but unfortunately, I don't have a preview to give. Sorry. ^^'**

 **Oh! This isn't a huge deal, but just so you know, I did go and make a bunch of edits to the previous chapters, so go have a look, if you're curious. :)**

 **- _In response to TheAmberShadow_ — Yes! I would love to give you extended notes! :D However, I can't send you a PM because you don't have an account. :( I'm sorry if I made that unclear. I think I recall saying that you needed to leave a 'signed' review (that being one left under a named account), but I guess now you can sign them without having an account. :/ My apologies, that's my fault. For future reference, I cannot send anyone any extra content unless you have an account that I can PM. Otherwise, I have to awkwardly work it into the actual chapter. :/ However, since you asked, I'll take the excuse and leave the extended notes for Male Jesse in the Choice Notes for this chapter. :) It is… really long though, so please don't feel like you have to read through it. :}**

 **- _Whatshername_ — At the time of writing this, I wasn't sure of 'her' real name, so for Set in Stone at least, I had decided to just work around it and make it an ongoing joke. Even though I know her name now, I purposely neglected to say it, and for two very good reasons. One, I don't want the whole beginning of the story to be name soup, and two, because it seemed to be an ongoing joke before 'Order Up!' came out amongst the fans who didn't think to check the credits for her name. Like me, some people just didn't know what it was, so they either made something up, or just followed along with what the rest of the fandom had accepted, which turned out to be her real name. So even after 'Order Up!' though, I decided to just roll with it. XP If you don't know what it is, you can look it up, but I'm not gonna tell you. :P**

 **- _Ahead of the Game —_ You might be wondering why the team in Booth 2 was already building despite the contest not being underway. I headcanon that people are allowed to build things before the competition if they either get permission, or it's a tool to help them while they build but that requires setup. Eg: A cobblestone generator. :P (Eh… should I leave a note about cobblestone generators in the Glossary? :/)**

 **- _Worry Wagon_ — I'd like to take a moment to call myself out on my own hypocrisy here. I tend to be very finicky about mentioning anything like this when I'm writing for Minecraft, but forgive me, this was just too funny. X)**

 **- _Juuuust let him bury himself._ — I just wanted to draw attention to this for a minute. I think this would be one of those sayings that has a slightly different meaning in Minecraft than it does in real life, but only slightly. In Minecraft, burying yourself is something that a lot of people do to get away from monsters if they were being dumb by wandering around at night, or staying out too late. So in this case, I think Jesse means for it to be like, "Yeah, eventually Aiden will realize that what he's doing (or saying) is stupid, then dig a hole and hide in it." It's a way of saying, 'this person should be ashamed of themselves.' ;P**

 **Choice Notes:**

 ** _-_ _The Quincunx_ _Stars_ — The four actual names that the game gives to choose from are, in my opinion, absolutely ridiculous. While I understand that it's not important, has no long-term effects, and it _is_ Jesse and he's really silly sometimes, I still wanted to come up with something better. However, I didn't want Jesse's other silly ideas to never get the light of day, so hence the funny discussion. :)**

 **- _Gloria_ — Some of you may or may not know that this is the name of one of the people you run into in Redstonia, and I always thought she looked very much like the 'Check-in Lady.' XD (If anyone knows _her_ name, I'd love to hear it!) So I thought, why not? Without spoiling too much, this is I suppose, my way of connecting the world more, and giving more life to the people therein. These aren't just NPCs you can talk to, they're real people and they have people they care about as well. I'll refrain from saying anything else lest I spoil the people reading this who don't know/remember what happens. XP (Hi Mom!)**

 **- _W_ _ho the Nether Cares?_ — I always loved this joke. X) However, it bugged me that even though they made this joke, they still used 'Hell' later. I've decided to change this, not just because I don't like swearing in my writing unless it's absolutely appropriate, but I figure since there actually is a Minecraft equivalent of Hell, and they _actually_ make this joke, them cursing in these spots doesn't even make any sense. I know what you're probably thinking. Who the nether cares? And the answer is, I care, so get used to it. :]  
As for Olivia here, you could debate that this is out of character, but since she is shown as being very blatantly opinionated about things that are important to her later, I think I'm justified enough in having her be this way. :P**

 **- _The Creeper Clap_ —Yeah, I just had to come up with my own dumb handshake. XP**

 **- _Male Jesse (Extended!)_ — Oh boy! (Pun fully intended) Here I go. Don't say I didn't warn you. XP Now, note that a lot of these are very interpretable, as most things in MCSM are, but remember that I'm not trying to convince you to abandon your headcanon or anything, I'm just giving my thoughts. Also, spoiler warning on this one. ;)**

 **The main thing that comes to mind is Petra's implied crush on Jesse if he's a he. Of course, Telltale tried to write the story where you don't have to see it this way, but her motives don't make the most sense if this _isn't_ the case. For instance, if Petra likes him, it would make sense that she might channel that into trying to get him involved in her life by telling him about her jobs/trades, or even inviting him to come along with her, especially since she does this so suddenly. You could say that they just like each other as friends, but they don't even really make that clear. (I believe I've stated before that Petra's character is pretty half-baked to me, and her relationship with Jesse is even more so.) There are also a few times that Jesse will make some weird comment that makes me laugh if Jesse's male, but if Jesse is female, they make me think, 'Whhaa...? O.o'. One time is when Jesse says the "We're super close now," line, and two is a line that you can only get if you talk to the DJ at EnderCon and say the, 'I'm looking for someone' option. Jesse proceeds to say what sounds like a really bad pick-up line that is hilarious if Jesse is male, and if not… eh… All that aside, there are WAY too many fanfics for female Jessie! I'm sorry, but I _am_ biased and I'd like to see some _GOOD_ fanfiction with male Jesse, thank you very much! |:(**

 **I'm all for girl power and stuff, (and pardon if this makes no sense to someone who isn't me) but to me, it actually seems like Jesse being female degrades Lukas a little bit (a lot). Suddenly all of their interactions with each other make Lukas seem lame or weak, or even downright immature. The first time I actually saw that scene where Jesse and Lukas are fighting over the amulet, I saw it with Female Jessie and remembered thinking, 'Dude, what's your problem?' but when I saw it again with Male Jesse, I loled. For some reason, two dudes fighting over something like two-year-olds fighting over a hotwheel is hilarious, but not so much with a guy and a lady. Whenever Jessie does something totally epic and awesome, I find myself asking, 'Why can't Lukas do this? He's a guy, he should be able to do this!' Normally the answer would be, 'Because he's not Jesse,' :P but with Jesse being Jessie, it just doesn't seem right to me. :/ Especially since there are two capable guys and a super headstrong girl on the team, it's hard for me to even see Female Jessie as the strong, bold leader that my Jesse is. :3 Call me sexist if you like, but I'm a girl, so neh! ):P**

 **Glossary :**

 **Well, none of these are really necessary, but here I go…**

 **- _Obsidian_ — Obsidian is one of the strongest blocks in Minecraft. It can't be blown up by TNT, and even with the strongest pick, it takes ten times longer to mine than any other mineable block.**

 **- _Rainbow Beacon_ — Both the beacon and stained glass are pretty straightforward (and also fairly well explained in the chapter itself), so I'm just gonna say that in Minecraft, you can color the light that comes from a beacon by putting stained glass over it. (Yea, not important.)**

 **- _Daylight Sensor/Note_ _B_ _lock_ _s_ — Two more redstone components, once again pretty straightforward. Daylight sensors check for daylight, and note blocks play notes when activated. (Did I mention, not important? XP)**


End file.
